Google introduced its Google.cn in January of 2006. Google created its China branch because of pressures from the Chinese authorities that needed to censor Google search engine results. Google’s policy has always been to never ever censor search engine benefits. Nevertheless, as previously mentioned on the Google blog site, it was decided that:
“…the rewards of improved use of the info for individuals in China and an open Internet outweighed our distress in agreeing to censor some results. ” Since then the climate in China has changed.
In mid-December of 2009, Google noticed a rather advanced and precise strike on their business infrastructure which originated from China. At first, the attack seemed to be a security issue because it was directed at intellectual property and Google was stolen. However, after more inquiries have been made the attack ended up to be something very differed.
Firstly, the attack wasn’t merely on Google. Part of the investigation discovered that 20 other businesses, from a broad range of sectors namely financial, know-how, press chemical and internet sectors, were similarly targeted.
The next problem was that the research gathered points on the main objective of the assailants becoming the access of Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activist. Nevertheless, Google’s evidence suggests that the assailants weren’t effective in implementing this particular attack and were only in a position to collect summary info over the accounts. This info contains the day the account was established and also the subject line of correspondence, not the idea itself.
Finally together with the study, but free from the attack, Google found that the profiles of several U.S., Chinese and also European based Gmail users who’re advocates of rights that are human in China seem to were seen by third parties. This access although wasn’t as a result of a security flaw quite these accounts were probably accessed by phishing malware or scams on the users’ computer system which collected the login info for the accounts.
Since these attacks, Google makes severe infrastructure changes to prevent some future attacks. Attacks through methods like phishing or even making use of malware are as much as the end user to stop. Use of a great antivirus and anti-malware system is suggested by Google.
What these attacks converted too is that Google will no longer sit by and censor its search engine leads to China even when that usually means turning off down its China department. Google stated that:
“We’ve decided we’re not prepared to keep on censoring our outcomes on Google.cn, and thus over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be talking about with the Chinese authorities the foundation where we could possibly run an unfiltered search engine within the law, in the case at all. We recognize this might well mean being forced to de-activated Google.cn, moreover potentially our workplaces in China.”
Sadly the only individuals who’ll endure this are the Chinese folks. While Google appears to be solid in its choice the sole hope for Google in China is with what the Chinese Government and if it is going to allow uncensored searches.
Censorship can be annoying at times, especially when you need to conduct in-depth searches and as much resources as possible. Did you know that blocking IP is among the standard methods used to skip censorship? TechnoFizi said this, their article on skipping internet censorship is indeed interesting. Go check it out.